Stalker used Snapchat to trace girl, 13, to secluded area where he sexually abused her in front of her friend
Paedophile abused young girl after tracking her down on Snapchat
A convicted stalker used Snapchat to track down a 13-year-old girl to a secluded location, where he sexually abused her in front of her friend.
“Dangerous” Kieron Oldham was twice the age of the girl he preyed upon, after adding her on social media a day earlier, and quickly escalating to sexual communications over Snapchat, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
During the course of their communication, Oldham - who knew the girl’s young age from the offset - sent the girl pictures of his genitals over Snapchat before asking her to send him naked pictures of herself.
Oldham was subject to a two-year suspended sentence for stalking when he met the girl for the first time as she and a friend were visiting a den they had made in nearby grassland.
That night he tracked her down on social media.
“You asked to meet her that night, but thankfully she did not turn up,” Judge Charles Thomas told Oldham on April 15, 2026.
He added: “The following morning, she went back to her den. She put on Snapchat where she would be…you went to find her.”
The hearing heard that the girl’s friend had accompanied her to the den and was present during the ordeal that followed on June 20, 2025.
Prosecutor Helen Chapman said Oldham asked the girl to carry out a sex act on him in exchange for £5, before subjecting her to what Judge Thomas described as an “extremely serious sexual offence” in grassland off Darfield Road in Cudworth, Barnsley.
The courageous girl read her victim statement to the court, describing how Oldham’s offending against her has caused her to feel “ashamed” and as though she cannot trust males she comes into contact with.
She also revealed the ordeal has led to her self-harming.
Ms Chapman told the court that after meeting the girl - who is entitled to lifelong anonymity - for the first time, Oldham was seen to “look her up and down,” but was careful to “hide” when members of the public came past.
He also sought to claim the girl had mistaken him for someone else, both when he was arrested and to the author of his pre-sentence report.
The latter denials even came after Oldham, now aged 27, admitted offences of causing a female 13 or over to engage in a penetrative sexual activity and engaging in sexual communication with a child.
Oldham’s barrister, Chris Aspinall, suggested Oldham now accepts he committed the sex offences, and suggested they came after he fell into a spiral of drink and illicit drugs in the wake of his parents’ deaths.
But Judge Thomas said Oldham’s continued denials, combined with the speed in which he went from meeting the girl to sexually offending against her, suggested he was a “dangerous” offender.
He jailed him for four years, eight months for the sex offences, as part of which he made him the subject of an extended two-year licence period due to the danger he is deemed to pose to the public.
“There was a degree of planning, of significant planning, you obtained her details on social media. You then responded to seeing where she was going to be, somewhere relatively secluded, where you felt you could carry out the sexual offences against her,” Judge Thomas said.
He also activated a year of Oldham’s suspended sentence, bringing the total length of his jail term to five years, eight months.
Oldham, formerly of Southfield Road, Cudworth, Barnsley, was also sentenced for driving offences, relating to his use of an e-bike when uninsured and disqualified from driving, for which he received six points on his licence.
Judge Thomas also told Oldham he must remain on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely, made him the subject of a 15-year sexual harm prevention order and granted a 15-year restraining order prohibiting him from contacting the victim.